Q+A-Obama faces political peril with Afghan policy

WASHINGTON Dec 1 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's decision on a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan carries political peril as his Democratic Party gears up for tough midterm congressional elections next year.

Obama will unveil the strategy on Tuesday in an address from the West Point military academy. He will significantly bolster U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan and may also outline an exit strategy for the conflict.

Republicans have urged Obama to take decisive action, while many Democrats have expressed serious doubts, making a delicate balancing act for a president already battling to deliver on his political promises.

WHAT IS AT STAKE?

Obama must decide whether to grant a request by his top Afghan commander, Army General Stanley McChrystal, for as many as 40,000 more U.S. troops or to side with more cautious advisers who favor a smaller deployment of 10,000 to 20,000 additional troops and a greater role for Afghan forces.

Influential voices in Obama's Cabinet, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates as well as military chiefs, favor a U.S. troop increase of 30,000 or more, and the final number could reach 35,000 once U.S. trainers are factored in.

The decision is critical for the future of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, where 68,000 U.S. soldiers already anchor a multinational force of about 110,000 troops battling resurgent Taliban militants.

Part of a broader campaign against al Qaeda, the conflict carries risks for neighboring countries such as nuclear-armed Pakistan as well as for U.S. allies such as Britain, where public support for the war is flagging.

It could also imperil Obama's domestic agenda from healthcare to climate change as politicians in Washington and the voters who put them there weigh the wisdom of a costly U.S. campaign in a country long known as "the graveyard of empires."

WHAT DO AMERICANS THINK?

Opinion polls show Americans -- exhausted by the long war in Iraq and their own economic problems -- are deeply divided on Afghanistan.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found 46 percent of Americans supported a large influx of troops to fight insurgents and train the Afghan military, while 45 percent favored sending a smaller number of troops.

The poll showed 48 percent of Americans disapproved of how Obama was handling Afghanistan, against 45 percent who approved.

Most worrisome for Democrats, approval among independents -- swing voters who helped put Obama in the White House in 2008 -- fell to a new low of 39 percent.

Doubts over Afghanistan coincide with widespread concern among Americans over high unemployment, huge government bailout programs, a rising federal budget deficit and a divisive debate over reforming the expensive healthcare system.

The anti-incumbent mood could cut into Democrats' legislative majorities in November 2010, when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and a third of the seats in the 100-member Senate are up for election.

HOW ARE DEMOCRATS REACTING?

Many liberal Democrats oppose a major escalation of involvement in a conflict they no longer see as central to U.S. security.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an advocate for other Obama initiatives such as healthcare reform, spoke out against upping the ante in Afghanistan, calling Afghan President Hamid Karzai an "unworthy partner" tainted by corruption who does not merit more U.S. aid.

Other top Democrats have urged Obama to outline what the U.S. "exit strategy" will be for Afghanistan.

McChrystal, in a briefing to a delegation of U.S. lawmakers last week, suggested the U.S. troop presence could begin to diminish after a post-surge peak by 2013, while an international conference on Afghanistan set for London in January would aim to set conditions for a gradual transfer of security responsibility to Afghan control.

Several veteran Democratic lawmakers have proposed a "war tax" -- almost unthinkable in an election year -- on the richest Americans to pay for the conflict.

Democrats hope that by reining in Obama on Afghanistan, they can prevent the party from becoming too closely associated with an unpopular war with no clear path to victory.

They also hope to regain some credibility as fiscal managers by hitting the brakes on war spending that could rise by $30 billion to $40 billion per year.

WHAT DO REPUBLICANS SAY?

For Republicans, Obama's Afghanistan quandary has been an opportunity to showcase their traditionally strong views on national security and highlight what some portray as indecisiveness on the part of the Democratic president.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney told a conservative talk radio host that Obama's three-month review of the options in Afghanistan had taken too long.

"The delay is not cost-free," Cheney said. "Every day that goes by raises doubts in the minds of our friends in the region what you're going to do, raises doubts in the minds of the troops."

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell urged Obama to "keep the pressure on" the Taliban, while 14 House Republicans sent Obama a letter endorsing McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops.

Republicans hope the debate will show them as vigilant against threats to the United States and win back voters in swing districts who have grown disillusioned with Obama.

Democrats say Republicans are trying to distract Americans from the failure to defeat the Taliban in seven years of military operations under former President George W. Bush, who committed far greater forces to his war in Iraq. (Reporting by Andrew Quinn; Editing by Patricia Wilson and Doina Chiacu)